Tenore

What it means

Tenore is the Italian designation for the tenor, the high male voice. It is regularly encountered in scores, casting lists, and role directories, often with additions that specify the fach more precisely — for instance tenore leggero for the light, agile voice or tenore drammatico for the heavy one. The range usually reaches from low C to c'', with the classification, as with all voice types, following colour and carrying power and not extreme notes.

Musical use

The word also leads back into the history of polyphony: the tenor was originally the voice that held the given cantus firmus — the name comes from “to hold”. Only later did it become the designation of a voice range. In opera the tenor has, since the late eighteenth century, predominantly been the voice of the leading characters; before that, high male roles were cast differently. In the church and concert repertoire it carries narrative parts and arias, in the choir the second voice from the top, which is often decisive for the cohesion of the texture.

The name also designates a distinct genre unrelated to the Italian solo voice: canto a tenore, a polyphonic men's singing tradition from the Sardinian region of Barbagia, recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage in 2005. Four singers form the voices boghe (solo, carries the text), mesu boghe (accompanies the solo), contra (a fifth above the bass), and bassu (at the pitch of the solo); contra and bassu sing with a guttural technique on nonsense syllables.

Performance practice

Work on the passaggio, which for the tenor usually lies around f' and f-sharp'; it decides whether the top range stays free or sounds pressed. Build the top range through breath support and openness, not through force. Practise softly in a high register, because that trains control more than loud singing. Choose repertoire by colour rather than by top notes, and take on heavy fach only once the voice has matured for it. When reading old scores, watch the clefing, since tenor parts there may stand in the tenor clef or the octave-transposing treble clef.